Eroding
by rollingplains
Summary: In which they bond over booze, names, and a mild disrespect for authority. Maybe just a smidge AU, and a sprinkling of profanity.


She always expected to go down in a hail of bullets, or thrown from a building. Something quick, furious and violent. Handcuffed to a railing, waiting for extradition was a bit anticlimactic in comparison. Even if she had made the choice to stand down, she can't help but feel indignant, being referred to as 'the target', adjectives like 'subdued' and 'disarmed' to describe her. _I could kick your ass to Friday, you know._ _I just chose not to._

She almost feels like she's let herself down.

She hears him talking. "Yes, target is restrained. I'll be fine, don't worry about me. Take your time. I'll keep an eye on her until your ETA." He clicks his phone off and looks at her. _You're very confident in your ability to keep me under control_, she wants to say, but truthfully, she is completely unable to free herself. Although he probably has no way to be sure of this.

"They're going to be here in 10 hours. I'd move you to a more comfortable position but I just don't trust you."

"Smart man."

He shrugs. "Well, just let me know if you need to use the washroom." She refuses acknowledge a comment so pedestrian, and just looks straight ahead. "You know it could have just as well been me, right?" He tilts his head towards her incapacitated state.

She had read about him extensively, even been matched up against him a few times. She suspects that intel on their side drew the same conclusion as the reports she had reviewed: that in terms of skill, agility and stamina, their scores were within a tenth of a percentage point of each time, however, he had the advantage this time because she was ambushed. So maybe he was trying to find common ground with her or soothe her bruised ego, but his words only burn.

Maybe he realizes this, because he leans against the railing she's handcuffed to, and says, "Natalie, is it?"

She can hear a touch of mirth in his voice, and she experiments with the limits of her restraints to see if he's within kicking distance. No operative would have been sent on a mission without being briefed on the target's known aliases. Especially since hers are so readily available.

She's about to spit her first name at him, but stops and grumbles instead, "For you, Natalya."

* * *

She tries not to be the reluctant captive - after all, it was an attack of conscience on his part that she was alive at all and she'd be lying if she said she preferred death over working with him. Elite assassins were so rare - most of the ones she had come across were of the bumbling variety (at least when compared to her) - that it was a pure adrenaline rush just anticipating being paired with someone who could keep up with her.

Still, old habits die hard. She's been trained all her life to evade capture and cover her tracks and now they're expecting full disclosure from her. She's sitting in a barren room across from him trying patiently to answer his questions but can't help being reticent with details.

He leaves the room with what she perceives to be frustration but returns with two beers and tosses one to her. She hesitates for a split second, and he shakes his head. "For God's sake, they're clean. If we wanted you dead, you'd have been long gone." He takes the beer back, pops the cap and hands it to her. "For you, Natalya."

She can't help it when her lips quirk up slightly, and she knows he's got her.

* * *

He calls her Natalya after that, whenever they're alone and she never corrects him. She can't be bothered when they both know he knows her real name.

* * *

One morning, they essentially haul her out of bed at 0300 hours for emergency recon work. Agent Hill briefs her while they walk. She just blearily tries to focus on putting on foot in front of the other.

She passes him in the hallway. He must have been tapped for the same mission, except he doesn't look like he only had 2 hours of sleep. "Barton." she mumbles in his approximate direction.

"Natalya." He returns the nod.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Agent Hill's eyebrows shoot off her face.

* * *

She sits on the floor, back against the side of her bed, waiting for deployment in 0600 hours. "You should have seen her face when you called me Natalya. She asked me to disclose whatever I was still hiding. And then she went on about how I still have to prove myself. And get the hell off my bed."

"Hill can kiss my ass", he says, making no motion to peel himself from her mattress. One arm hangs idly over the end of her bed, a beer dangling from his fingertips.

"Call me by my real name when other people are around. And stop drinking. We ship out in 2 hours."

Once again, he only addresses her first concern. "Has it been a problem before?" he shoots back, and she has to consider this. In meetings, he avoids referring to her at all, and if he must, she'll be 'she', 'her', or a flick of his head in her direction. If it comes down to it, he'll refer to her by codename.

"Still," she says. "I'm going to be lying half dead in a ditch somewhere and you're going to radio in screaming for Natalya and no one will know what the fuck you're talking about."

"You will not be lying half dead, in a ditch or otherwise, if I have anything to do about it, Natasha." he says adamantly. Her name sounds foreign, coming from him, and he seems to agree. "Doesn't sound right, does it?" he says, more to himself. He passes the beer to her.

She downs the rest. "Chivalrous," she says, "but I don't need protecting."

"Call it what you want, but you wouldn't believe the shit I got for bringing you on board. I just want to make sure you live long enough to be worth it."

* * *

They're separated for a couple months, working opposite districts in Shanghai. There are express orders that field agents are not to contact each other during this time. but on a night off, she tracks him down to a bar frequented by ex-pats in a shady part of town.

He's chatting up a pretty local and she ignores the sudden clench in her stomach when she sees him. She had been planning to send him a drink with a note (_2 more weeks_) and leave without saying hi, but changes her mind.

"Do you ever stop drinking?"

If he's surprised to see her, he doesn't show it. "Not if I can help it."

Small wonder he can shoot straight as often as he does. "Looking for a piece to bring home tonight?" she asks in Russian, to spare Pretty Local's feelings (who, while within earshot, has gotten the hint and moved on).

He responds in English. "I figured it was the best way to lure you out of hiding."

"You could have just called."

"No challenge in that."

"So I'll just pick up an asshole family man on business next time I'm looking for you."

He thinks about this. "Probably not the best way. But the fastest, for sure."

"I'll pass. I have enough blood in my hands without having to worry about you spearing some little girl's daddy in the neck."

"She'll cry and cry." he agrees.

She appends to his comment. "And the family won't have any closure because the killer will never be caught."

"His wife will swear up and down that her husband was a good man and never had any enemies..." he continues, thoughtfully.

"...but if she knew he had been cheating on her for the past 6 years, she might have tried to kill him herself." she finishes.

He's amused. "So if you're looking for me, and pick him up, and I subsequently find him with you, and kill him, I'd just be doing the wife a favour."

"If I'm looking for you, I'll just email." she says, and they drink to that.

* * *

Near the end of the aforementioned two weeks, she wakes up, flat on her back, to the ground shaking and the sound of her (real) name yelled into the comm with some urgency. "Yeah...yeah, I'm here. Where's the fire?" she mutters. Her head is splitting.

"Nice to have you back." he says, voice all business. No hint at all that just a second ago he was screaming like an 8 year old girl. "Landmine detonation." he explains. "I wasn't close enough to be injured but you were close enough to be knocked out." When she stays silent, he prods her. "You ok?"

She has to close her eyes to keep the sky from spinning.

"Natasha?"

"Natalya." she corrects him, and he laughs in relief, but his voice turns serious.

"Don't do that to me again. Or I _will_ kill you myself."

"I'm very good at defending myself, have you forgotten?"

"I'll do it in your sleep. You won't feel it at all."

"And waste all the hard work you put into turning me SHIELD compliant? Hah."

"Don't test me." he says.

* * *

"I was thinking of asking for a week off. Clear my head, make sure I'm thinking straight." she says, on their ride back to base by an evac chopper. When he doesn't respond, she asks "Why, bad idea?"

He doesn't look her in the eye. "No. They'll approve it for sure. Your work on this mission was top notch, and they know it."

"There's something you're not telling me." she declares emphatically, and briefly considers jabbing a finger where he got grazed by a bullet to make him talk, but no, she doesn't need to, she's already starting to suspect they might have a hard time keeping secrets from each other.

"You know they're going to ask me to tail you while you're gone."

She had expected this. "Good," she says. "I was going to tell you to come with me anyway."


End file.
